Ivanov

ignorant to tears, I could weep at the sight of sorrow, was moved to wrath at the sight of wrongdoing. I knew the meaning of inspiration, I felt the charm and poetry of still nights when from sunset to sunrise one sits at one’s writing-table or gladdens one’s soul with dreams. I had faith, I could look into the future as into my mother’s eyes.⁠ ⁠… But now, oh, my God! I am worn out, I have no faith, I spend days and nights doing nothing. My brains do not obey me, nor my hands nor my feet. My property is going to ruin, the forest is falling under the axe weeps. My land looks at me like a deserted child. I expect nothing, I regret nothing; my soul shudders with fear of the morrow.⁠ ⁠… And the way I have treated Sarra! I swore to love her forever, I promised her happiness, I displayed before her a future she had not imagined in her dreams. She believed me. For five years I’ve seen her pining away under the weight of her sacrifice, and worn out by the struggle with her conscience, but, as God is above, there has not been one doubtful glance, not one word of reproach! And here I’ve ceased to love her.⁠ ⁠… How? Why? What for? I don’t understand it. Here she is suffering; her days are numbered, and I, like the meanest sneak, run away from her pale face, her sunken chest, her supplicating eyes. It’s shameful, shameful! A pause. Sasha, a child, is touched by my misery. She tells me, at my age, that she loves me, and I am intoxicated, forget everything in the world, enchanted as though by music, and shout “A new life! happiness!” And next day I believe as little in that new life and happiness as in goblins.⁠ ⁠… What’s the matter with me? To what depths am I making myself sink? What has brought this weakness on me? What has happened to my nerves? If my sick wife wounds my vanity or a servant does not please me, or my gun misses fire, I become brutal, angry and unlike myself a pause. I don’t understand, I don’t understand! I might as well shoot myself and have done with it! Lvov Enters. I must have things out with you, Nikolay Alexeyevitch. Ivanov If we are to have things out every day, Doctor, it’s more than anyone could stand. Lvov Will you hear me out? Ivanov I hear you out every day, and I still can’t make out what it is you want of me. Lvov I speak clearly and definitely, and no one but a heartless man could fail to understand me. Ivanov That my wife is dying⁠—I know; that I am hopelessly to blame in regard to her, I know also. That you are an honest, upright man, I know too! What more do you want? Lvov I am revolted by human cruelty.⁠ ⁠… A woman is dying. She has a father and mother whom she loves and would like to see before her death; they know quite well that she will soon die and that she still loves them, but, damnable cruelty! they seem to want to impress people by their religious hardness⁠—they still persist in cursing her! You are the man to whom she has sacrificed everything⁠—her home and her peace of conscience; yet in the most undisguised way, with the most undisguised objects, you go off every day to those Lebedyevs!⁠ ⁠… Ivanov Oh, I have not been there for a fortnight.⁠ ⁠… Lvov Not heeding him. With people like you one must speak plainly without beating about the bush, and if you don’t care to listen to me, then don’t listen! I am accustomed to call a spade a spade.⁠ ⁠… Her death will suit you and pave the way for your new adventures; so be it, but surely you might wait? If you would let her die naturally without persistently worrying her by your open cynicism, surely you would not lose the Lebedyev girl and her dowry? If not now, then in a year or two you would succeed, you marvellous hypocrite, in turning the girl’s head and getting her money just as easily.⁠ ⁠… Why are you in such a hurry? Why do you want your wife to die now, and not in a month or in a year?⁠ ⁠… Ivanov This is simply agony.⁠ ⁠… You can’t be a very good doctor if you imagine that a man can restrain himself indefinitely. It’s a fearful effort to me not to answer your insults. Lvov Come, whom do you think you are taking in? Throw off your mask! Ivanov You clever person, think a little! You suppose there is nothing easier than understanding me, yes? I married Anna for the sake of her fortune⁠ ⁠… they did not let me have it. I made a blunder, and now I am getting rid of her so as to marry another girl and get her money, yes? How simple and straightforward! Man is such a simple, uncomplicated machine.⁠ ⁠… No, doctor, there are too many wheels and screws and levers in any one of us for us to be able to judge each other from the first impression or from two or three external signs. I don’t understand you, you don’t understand me, and we don’t understand ourselves. One may be a good doctor and at the same time utterly ignorant of human nature. Don’t be too self-confident, and do see that. Lvov Can you really imagine that you are so difficult to see through, and that I am so brainless that I can’t see the difference between a rogue and an honest man? Ivanov It is evident that we shall never come to an understanding. For the last time I ask you the question, and please answer it without any preliminary words: what exactly do you want of me? What are you trying to get at? Irritably. And to whom have I the honour of speaking⁠—my judge or my wife’s doctor? Lvov I am